Before we go on, in order to make the point of house values, I typed in "homes for sale in Wedgefield Plantation." I looked for the property description for the properties. Without fail, they read like this:
*"owners have access to a private boat ramp, and membership is available for golf course, tennis courts, and pool."
*"boosts gorgeous views of golf course."
*home on a HUGE (typed as printed in the ad) deep water canal lot."
Look at the descriptions for yourself. Potential canal lot owners are continuing to be fooled. Remember, our legal chair promised that we would see a by-law amendment on the ballot this November, that says there would be no WPA funds spent on the canals. The recent, and potential golf course lot owners have been fooled also.
At the end of the June WPA meeting, during resident comments, a new female golf course lot owner, asked the board what they were doing about the golf course situation, and asked whether any resident meetings could be called to put together a plan. Listen to the tape at the Wedgefield Times (It is the only place you can hear it, because your board hasn't posted tapes of the meetings in months. Are the tapes unavailable because they want to keep you in the dark, as to the way they operate, because in general, it isn't according to any standard, recognized business standards?) The board didn't offer to facilitate a meeting for discussion. Instead, they laughed about concerns of golf course lot owners looking out at over growth, and suggested goats.
I have great respect for the woman who spoke. Her concerns were genuine. Yet, she received her first lesson of what it is like to buy into, and live in Wedgefield. She used the term property values more than once. She appears to understand that home ownership is one of the biggest financial investments we make. Just as important, this is the place where we live - we call it home. It is a home placed in a divided community, driven by people who will cut off their nose to spite their face. Why, if she was a seasoned resident, would she expect her board to understand property values, and decent maintenance? I'll remind you all that you have allowed this board to cheapen our values on an ongoing basis, with general maintenance of areas the board should be calling on our governing documents, and keeping our standards up. They don't, and they have allowed our grounds maintenance chair to reduce us to substandard. Today, to make a point, I photographed lots that the board holds maintenance contracts on (lot owners entered a contract, and paid the board to maintain their lots to standard). I also photographed areas that the board should be fining lot owners for failure to maintain. (ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER THE PICTURES.)
The lot adjacent to my house looks like this one too!
Obviously, your board doesn't care enough to take care of these problems. They don't care about your property values in this case, or in the larger scheme of canals, and golf courses.
No one on this board appears to use their own functioning brains, as individuals, and speak in your behalf. They are lead by a few, who lead them around like sheep. I've often used the following cartoon.
The cartoon is appropriate once again. When the board was asked about buying the golf course, they threw out ridiculous information, and then the big fear factor to start the scare car engines - "We'd have to raise the assessment to over $1,200 a year." Having lived here, and witnessed some of their individual rash figure throwing, it is the "Welcome home to what I tell you, RESIDENT/MEMBER sheep." After all, it is almost election time again.
More to follow in the next day, or two, but before we go, you may need a reminder, as to how bad the golf course can get. It didn't take long, before the old sixteenth hole came to this:
